


Lovely

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [30]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Blood and Injury, Caretaking, Developing Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Healing, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26051812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: ”Why am I naked?” she asks, craning her neck to look at herself with a perplexed scowl.“You're not naked,” Din stresses matter-of-factly. She has her bra on and he's been diligently keeping his attention trained on his medical task, despite the temptation he feels lurking in the back of his mind, begging him to only take one look.Cara doesn't try to cover herself, and Din will never know if she's actually okay with him stripping her or if she's just too confused to protest.“Where is my upper clothing?” she slurs, still frowning at her bare torso. A warm flutter rises in Din's stomach at how her tongue catches a little on the Rs, but he decides to ignore it.“Yourupper clothingcouldn't be spared,” he informs her, unable to hold back an amused smile. “I had to cut through it to tend to your wound.”“Oh. That was so nice of you.” Cara pats his arm in what Din supposes is meant to be a grateful gesture.ORDin and the child take care of Cara when she gets injured and find out painkillers have a funny effect on her.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune, Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 29
Kudos: 168





	Lovely

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this is all [Name1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1)'s fault. I shouldn't be allowed to talk to her ever again. This time she was "happy" on painkillers and of course it gave me the idea for this fic. Please, blame it all on her.
> 
> This is yet another funny, fluffy fic, because this is honestly all my little scarred soul wants and can take. Writing has always been my medicine against a sickness that kept me in a dark, cold place for years, and sometimes still lurks, but I'm here and fine today because writing helped me through the hard times. So forgive me if you feel like there is so much more I could write about, because you're right, I could, but I won't, and I won't read it, either, because fanfic is my safe place, where I feel good and happy no matter what, and there is no room for sadness and darkness, here, not without comfort and a happy ending. Thank you all for understanding.

Cara's eyes hesitantly flutter open the moment Din starts dabbing the wet cloth over the gaping wound across her stomach. It's not very deep and he managed to stop the bleeding while he carried Cara's unconscious body back to the Razor Crest, but it needs a thorough cleaning to avoid infections and a good deal of stitches to help it heal better and faster.

The child is observing quietly as Din works scrupulously, dipping the cloth into a basin full of lukewarm water and disinfectant to wash the blood away from all over Cara's torso. What remains of her shirt lies on the ground in a pile of torn fabric soaked in dried blood. There was no way to keep the kid out of the room: as soon as Din tried to lock him out, the little one started wailing in a way that broke Din's heart and leaving him outside became impossible.

The Crest is not equipped with an infirmary, so Din had to improvise an emergency one in the storage room and cot Cara is lying upon is actually a carbonite slab encapsulating one of their most recent captures.

Seeing her eyes open is a huge relief to Din. The wound isn't a life-threatening concern but the pain must have been excruciating – enough to make her pass out. He hopes the painkillers he gave her were enough to ease her discomfort.

Cara blinks a few times, squinting at him through heavy lids. A slow smile stretches her lips despite the vertical cut splitting them just an inch shy of the middle. She doesn't seem to notice as she drowsily breathes, “Hey?”

Her voice is a hoarse, feeble purr.

The kid's ears perk up. Sitting beside her on the cot, he turns in her direction with a happy gurgle that conveys perfectly how Din is feeling and cannot seem to be able express.

“Hey,” he greets softly. Cara blinks again, visibly confused; she passed out after getting shot to protect the kid and she's probably wondering where she is and how she ended up here. She's never seen the storage room from this unique perspective and, for Din's taste, she got way too close to never seeing it again at all. His finger twitch, digging into the cloth he's pressing against her wound.

“How are you feeling?”

Guilt seeps through tone. There was nothing he could have done to prevent or stop Cara from being shot, still he can't stop thinking about the powerlessness he felt when he heard her scream and saw her fall into the dirt as a pool of blood spread beneath her, the child still clutched to her chest, unconscious.

Cara tries to stir but her body responses poorly to her attempt.

“Blurry,” she groans, and she sounds exactly like she feels.

”It'll wear off,” Din promises. He tries to focus back into cleaning the gush in her abdomen and only now Cara seems to notice what is happening.

”Why am I naked?” she asks, craning her neck to look at herself with a perplexed scowl.

“You're not naked,” Din stresses matter-of-factly. She has her bra on and he's been diligently keeping his attention trained on his medical task, despite the temptation he feels lurking in the back of his mind, begging him to only take _one_ look.

Cara doesn't try to cover herself, and Din will never know if she's actually okay with him undressing her or if she's just too confused to protest.

“Where is my upper clothing?” she slurs, still frowning at her bare torso. A warm flutter rises in Din's stomach at how her tongue catches a little on the Rs, but he decides to ignore it.

“Your _upper clothing_ couldn't be spared,” he informs her, unable to hold back an amused smile. “I had to cut through it to tend to your wound.”

“Oh. That was so nice of you.” Cara pats his arm in what Din supposes is meant to be a grateful gesture.

“You're welcome.”

He had to take his gloves off before touching her. His hands still smell like disinfectant, like pretty much everything he's been using. Cara watches him work, still groggy, and quietly follows every move like it's something incredibly fascinating.

After a while she says, “You kinda remind me of a guy I know.”

“Really?” A tender laughter bubbles within Din's chest. “A nice guy, I hope.”

Cara's face brightens with a dopey smile.

“Lovely,” she confirms with a weak nod. “So so lovely. You look shabbier, though,” she adds, running a finger down Din's torn and dirty sleeve.

Din's shoulders sag a little.

“I've had a rough day.”

He feels another sympathetic pat on his arm.

“Sorry to hear that, buddy. Anything I can do?”

It's funny that she's asking, since she's the one who's lying on a makeshift stretcher. Din is pretty battered himself, covered in soot and a fair amount of his own blood, but most of it came from his nose and not a blaster shot. He's fairly sure there is a nasty bruise spreading in his left side and, beneath it, at least a couple of cracked ribs; apart from this, though, he's unscathed, at least compared to Cara, and he's not okay with this.

“You've done enough for today.”

When all the dried blood is gone and the wound is clean, Din finally dares to remove the strip stitches he haphazardly placed to control the bleeding and sighs when he realises the gash runs deeper than he assumed. It's still not concerning but it's going to take a bit more work than initially anticipated.

The child gives Din a worried coo that has the slight lilt of a question, looking from Cara's wound to him and back.

“It's okay, kid,” Din reassures him, “I've got this. She's going to be okay, I promise.”

“I _am_ okay,” Cara chimes in. “Is that a real word? _Oak-kay..._ It doesn't feel real...”

The child shoots a puzzled glance up at Din, who can't help responding with a light laugh.

“She's weird, I know.”

The kid looks back at Cara with a pensive tilt in his head, one ear folded backward.

“Hey, kitty,” says Cara, wiggling a finger at him. The kid grabs it and giggles in utter delight, making Cara giggle, too, albeit not as gracefully.

There is a wide grin printed across Din's mouth as he gathers the medical equipment. He sprays bacta all over the wound and prepares the thread and needle to sew it up.

“Do you ever wonder what you look like under that thing?”

Din quickly masks his amused snort behind a cough at Cara's question. He's starting to think he probably exaggerated with those painkillers. At least Cara isn't suffering.

“Sometimes,” he says, as seriously as he can. “Do you?”

Cara shrugs. “Sometimes. I don't really look at faces.”

“No?”

“I look at people,” she explains, drawling every word like it's physically heavy on her tongue. “I know people _have_ faces but people are _people_ not faces. Know what I mean?”

Din nods. “I think I do.”

It's good that she can't see his face, and even if she could he doubts she would realise how helplessly he's grinning despite his attempts not to.

“I bet you look cute, though,” she notes while he struggles to fit the thread through the needle. His visor isn't programmed to work on close-up details.

“Based on what?” he inquires. He shouldn't be having fun with this: she's hurt and he's here to fix her, it's unfair of him to take such pleasure in her hazy state.

And then Cara says, “You feel cute,” and his cheeks start to hurt from how hard he's chuckling. He doesn't know where this warmth he's feeling inside is coming from; he hasn't felt like this since...

He's rather positive he's _never_ felt like this.

It might be the adrenaline fizzling out leaving him a little high, mixed with the relief of seeing Cara awake and fine, if a bit confused.

“Do I, now?” he teases.

“Mmh.”

It's such a pity Cara is in no shape to pick up his winking tone; in normal conditions, she would tease him back, likely fire back something cheeky and witty he wouldn't be able to top. Despite this, Din has to admit he likes this unusual version of her, too, free and unguarded, silly in the most adorable way.

“This is going to sting,” he warns as he nears the curved needle to her skin. Cara doesn't even flinch when the needle pushes in: she's too busy holding up a staring contest with the kid. She's scrutinising him like he's a book written in an unfamiliar language, and he's gazing back, his big head rolling from one side to the other and back with soft, questioning sounds.

Din has to stop sewing a couple of times when the wound starts bleeding again. He's afraid he will never be able to forget the feeling of Cara's hot blood upon his hands or how he felt when he picked her up from the ground, thinking she was gone.

He's already slipping into that dark place in his mind where Cara didn't make it and he's alone with his grief and his guilt when Cara's voice breaks him out of his trance.

“Why is this loth-cat green?”

Din meets the child's bewildered look with an indulgent sound he refuses to acknowledge as a muffled laugh.

“He's a _baby.”_

“Oh.” Cara narrows her eyes at the child. “Why is this baby loth-cat green?”

 _Should have been more specific,_ Din muses, mouth quirking upwards.

“Giving you painkillers wasn't a good idea,” he admits. It's only now, as he presses the cloth to her wound a little more firmly, that Cara seems to notice she's hurt.

“Hey, look: I'm bleeding!” she exclaims, eyes full of fascination.

“Yes,” Din pushes her back as she tires to sit up to see better, “and I'm trying to fix that. Lie still.”

“Thank you, that's so kind of you.” Cara obediently rests back against the blanket Din folded behind her head and watches him pick up the needle. “Are you a doctor?”

Din shakes his head. “No, sorry.”

He fears she might be disappointed, but in fact she's not even listening to him.

“A shiny shiny doctor,” she's sing-songing with a hand splayed over his chestplate.

“I'm not a doctor, Cara.”

“You sure?”

The way the child turns to him seems to ask him the exact same question. It's two against one, Din isn't sure he can keep his dignified composure for much longer.

“Pretty sure, yeah,” he says softly. He resumes stitching and after a moment feels the muscles of Cara's abdomen tense, so he places a hand just above her navel, urging her to relax. He removes it at once when he hears the little noise erupting low in Cara's throat, so dreadfully similar to a moan of pleasure.

“You're so good with your hands.”

A hot rush of tingles spreads from the nape of Din's neck up to his cheeks.

“I'm not even touching you right now,” he says defensively, as if she was accusing him of something rather than complimenting him.

“Then touch me?” she whimpers in a husky intonation that shouldn't come out of the mouth of someone who's high on medication. He hesitates at the next stitch: his hand isn't as firm as it's supposed to be, and it definitely wasn't this sweaty five seconds ago.

“I'm going to need you to shut up,” he grouses. “For your own sake and mine.”

Cara bites her lip and nods.

“I'll shut up. I'm gonna be so quiet you'll forget I'm here.”

Din almost scoffs. If she knew how close she was to _not_ being here, how glad she is he can see her and feel her under his fingertips...

And since he can't tell her any of this, the diplomatic next best thing is, “I don't think I can do that while I stitch you up.”

“Am I torn?” she inquires, like she's forgotten why she's lying here.

“It's just a flesh wound. You're going to be okay.”

Cara lets out a low, content mewl that rises goosebumps all over Din's arms.

“You're gonna take care of me?” Her hand runs tantalisingly up his vambrace while Din does his best to ignore it, only partially succeeding.

“Yes,” he confirms. His mouth is suddenly very dry.

It's a miracle he can secure the last stitch without any unfortunate incident. He checks the final result and finds out he did a remarkably poor job, which is odd because he's usually very accurate when he sews himself up; doing it to someone else should be easier. Unless, he guesses, the someone else matters to him more than he matters to himself.

“You're a good guy,” Cara murmurs absently, as if reasoning with herself. “Funny-looking but really good.”

“Tell me if this hurts,” he says, applying some disinfectant gel along the puckered cut with gentle dabs of his fingers.

“It tickles,” she giggles right after breaking into a wide yawn.

“Getting sleepy?” he asks as he washes his hands into a basin of clean water.

Cara nods. “Your touch is shoo- ssshoo- ssshhh-” She licks her lips with a frustrated groan. _“Sssoothing.”_

Din grins under his helmet. He's going to miss this Cara.

“I'm never giving you drugs again.”

He can tell she's tired by the thick slur of her speech. This isn't the most comfortable place to sleep, but he needs to let the bacta do its work and in order for that to happen Cara cannot be moved. She'll have to rest here, perhaps Din will be able to move her to her bed in a few hours.

He covers the wound with a patch of sterile gauze, then the kid helps him pull a warm blanket over Cara.

“Hey, loth-kitty-kitty-kitten!” she calls to the child while he carefully tucks a corner of the blanket under her shoulder. Cara scratches the underside of his chin and breaks into a giddy giggle. It tickles the kid's interest because he, much like Din, has never heard such a sound coming from Cara until now.

Din feels like it is unfair of him to witness this: he was never meant to see this side of Cara – maybe this isn't even Cara at all. He would be lying if he said he doesn't like seeing her like this, without poise and restraints.

“She's just a little confused,” he tells the kid to reassure him. Cara has never been so openly affectionate before. She normally hides behind small gestures, unspoken words she conveys with her eyes but never with her voice. Din has learned to hear them, knows how loud they can be, even if she's afraid to pronounce them.

“He's so cute,” she's cooing with the kid sprawled upon her chest, basking in her cuddles. Cara wraps her arms around him and glances over at Din with an imploring look.

“Can we keep him?”

Din is tempted to ask her what her friend who looks so much like him would have to say about that, but poor Cara is already muddled enough and she really needs some peace and quiet after what she went through. She deserves it.

“We'll see,” he concedes.

“Please?” Cara insists with a pout so cute and stubborn Din almost forgets they're already the child's guardians.

He sits by her side, picks up the child with a hand, disregarding Cara's protest, and with the other hand gently makes her lie back.

“You need to rest, now,” he says, removing some sweaty hair from her forehead. She feels hot, he's going to have to keep an eye on her.

“But I'm not tired,” Cara protests through yet another yawn. Din waits for the yawn to fade, then finds himself stroking the side of her face.

“Don't make me knock you out, Dune,” he warns with a whisper that comes out too fond to be taken seriously... except by someone high on drugs.

“So rude,” Cara complains, but still doesn't reject Din's caresses. So he doesn't stop.

“Yes,” he agrees amiably, “I very rudely care about you.”

She hums, abandoning her cheek against his palm. She doesn't seem to be paying much attention to what he's saying.

“Just close your eyes and get some sleep, please,” he begs. Curled upon his shoulder, the child lets out a little chirp of agreement. He must be tired, too.

Cara grabs Din's hand as he makes to stand up and tugs him back down.

“Stay with me.”

“I don't think-” He begins, but Cara just wiggles closer to him and rests her head on his lap with a content moan. Three seconds later, her eyes are closed and her breath is slow and even.

“Cara?” he calls tentatively.

Cara lazily rubs her face over his thigh and murmurs, “I'm a sleepy loth-kitty.”

There isn't much left to do for Din: he lets the child climb down his chest to cuddle up next to Cara and smiles when her arms fold around his small frame.

Din absently runs his hand through her hair, savouring the feeling of her breath warming him through his clothes. He couldn't tell her, but this is what he needed: to have her close, alive and breathing, real, tangible. She has no idea what she risked, today, but he does, and he's the one who needs reassurance. He keeps brushing his fingers through her hair, and slowly the fear of losing her is replaced by a fierce determination to protect her, to prevent something like this from happening again.

“No more drugs for you, loth-kitty,” he murmurs to himself. “Ever.”

He cups her neck, his thumb tracing her jawline, the tender skin below her bottom lip. He wants to hold her like this again, but for better reasons, _happier_ reasons.

 _I'll do my best to keep you safe,_ he swears.

_No more scares like this._

**Author's Note:**

> I had more fun than I was supposed to with this one. High Cara is definitely a joy to write.
> 
> The hype for the Season 2 trailer is real and after seeing the show's new header on the Star Wars site my hopes are soaring. My body isn't ready but bring this trailer on, come on!
> 
> Thanks in advance for every single beautiful soul who's going to leave a comment and consequently provide some much needed fuel to drag myself through yet another hot and humid week. You guys rock!


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